Homes are becoming steadily more connected; smart light bulbs, smart speakers, digital home assistants, smart thermostats and home security cameras, to name a few; are now commonplace within the modern home. All this connectivity, unfortunately, is making the home a target for cybercrime. Ideally, homes now require business-grade network protection to prevent hackers from listening to your private conversations, tracking your movement and stealing your passwords. However, such advanced protection usually comes hand-in-hand with much technical jargon, an overly complicated set-up and in-depth maintenance processes.
Hedgehog? responds to this by providing business-like protection but with a plug-and-play set-up. Hedgehog is your digital guardian. It uses Zobi Home Intelligence to detect and prevent cyber-crime across your entire home network. It’s small, cute - but prickly in the face of attacks, hence its name.
It was important to us that the name and purpose of the object inspired the design language. Due to this, Hedgehog is small, cute and friendly. However, it has sharp defensive edges, a subtle reference to the spikes of a Hedgehog, which are used to defend attacks. Functionally, these spikes provide ventilation and a hidden aperture for Hedgehog’s lighting. We felt that the Hedgehog needed to be visible, but at the same time; blend into the home environment. Due to this, we were inspired by homeware design trends; to help us create a decorative feeling object and to prevent Hedgehog from feeling like a piece of consumer electronics. This approach has, in turn, emphasised the cute and friendly aesthetic, allowing it to blend into virtually any home, no matter the decor.
